Poz bitch-slaps Chass

Wow, Poz debated on whether to write his latest blog post. I'm glad he did. Murray Chass is trying to be relevant, but instead keeps showing himself to be just the opposite.
http://joeposnanski.blogspot.com/2011/03/men-of-honor.html

I almost just posted this. While I appreciate Poz's efforts to debunk this horrible slur against Musial, what stopped me from posting was remembering -- from the last time Murray did something similarly irresponsible -- that he had brain cancer and surgery. Maybe I am giving him too much benefit of the doubt, but I can't believe he would be so mean-spirited and hateful if he had his faculties about him.

The last time it came up, my opinion was that it would be best for him to give up writing, but if it makes him feel worthwhile, go for it. However, now that he's venturing into character assassination of good and decent people, I'd say it's time for the family to step in and get dad to turn in the license.

I almost just posted this. While I appreciate Poz's efforts to debunk this horrible slur against Musial, what stopped me from posting was remembering -- from the last time Murray did something similarly irresponsible -- that he had brain cancer and surgery. Maybe I am giving him too much benefit of the doubt, but I can't believe he would be so mean-spirited and hateful if he had his faculties about him.

The last time it came up, my opinion was that it would be best for him to give up writing, but if it makes him feel worthwhile, go for it. However, now that he's venturing into character assassination of good and decent people, I'd say it's time for the family to step in and get dad to turn in the license.

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In the end, though, this is not as much about Chass as it is about Musial, someone Pos (rightfully) admires very much. Although Dooley points out that there is plenty of evidence to suggest Musial was not at all the man Chass made him out to be, I'll be the first to admit I know very little about Musial, and so when I read Chass' piece several days ago, it gave me pause. Was he really a racist? I wondered.

Pos wrote was he did for people like me, people who might otherwise go through life thinking Stan Musial wasn't quite as great as his reputation, simply because of something an angry old man wrote. Chass' health is sort of irrelevant, I think. Yes, it's sad if he's mentally not all there, and perhaps his family should step in before he goes full Helen Thomas on us. But I think it's always important to stand up and speak out against ignorant slander, no matter whom it offends. It's not like Pos took unfair shots at Chass personally.

I almost just posted this. While I appreciate Poz's efforts to debunk this horrible slur against Musial, what stopped me from posting was remembering -- from the last time Murray did something similarly irresponsible -- that he had brain cancer and surgery. Maybe I am giving him too much benefit of the doubt, but I can't believe he would be so mean-spirited and hateful if he had his faculties about him.

The last time it came up, my opinion was that it would be best for him to give up writing, but if it makes him feel worthwhile, go for it. However, now that he's venturing into character assassination of good and decent people, I'd say it's time for the family to step in and get dad to turn in the license.

Click to expand...

In the end, though, this is not as much about Chass as it is about Musial, someone Pos (rightfully) admires very much. Although Dooley points out that there is plenty of evidence to suggest Musial was not at all the man Chass made him out to be, I'll be the first to admit I know very little about Musial, and so when I read Chass' piece several days ago, it gave me pause. Was he really a racist? I wondered.

Pos wrote was he did for people like me, people who might otherwise go through life thinking Stan Musial wasn't quite as great as his reputation, simply because of something an angry old man wrote. Chass' health is sort of irrelevant, I think. Yes, it's sad if he's mentally not all there, and perhaps his family should step in before he goes full Helen Thomas on us. But I think it's always important to stand up and speak out against ignorant slander, no matter whom it offends. It's not like Pos took unfair shots at Chass personally.

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Agree wholeheartedly on Pos' part in the matter. That record needed to be set straight. And maybe I'm completely wrong and Murray had this mean streak in him his whole life. It's just that some of his writing is so incomprehensible at this point that I'm fishing for some kind of explanation.

Perhaps, but when something such as blatant as what Chass wrote is false, then it's a testament to a man's integrity to bring it to light and right, what he feels, to be a disgusting inaccuracy about someone he believes to be the complete opposite.

ange.i admire joe p. as much as i do any sports scribe. murray, as we all know, is increasingly bitter, staining a once stellar rep in baseball circles, but it is IMPOSSIBLE for any of us to know how much his well-documented health issues in recent years has contributed to the ramblings on HIS blog.

however, it is HIS blog; it goes uncensored and unedited, as far as i know. i am in NO WAY defending what murray wrote about musial. but i come here to simply argue i wish joe p. had kept this blog to himself. i understand fully when a blogger responds if he or she is under attack; in cases such as this, i don't believe it's any active PROFESSIONAL'S place to 'correct for the record' a wrong a BLOGGER has posted.

murray and his rants/ravings couldn't be more irrelevant now. if those 'fans' he still has read these blogs and take them as the gospel, what's the big deal? only absolute fools put any credence into murray's blogs; anyone who accepts them as the god's-honest-truth are as irrelevant as he's become.

sorry, i certainly undertand why joe p. was conflicted about posting it, and i also understand why many here have jumped on the bandwagon to applaud
him for 'taking murray on.' um, taking who on? a bitter, old, irrelevant blogger?

i thought joe p. came up small here, bullying a blogger. truthfully, i'd be more impressed if i saw more examples of joe p. 'taking on' active members of the sporting world for a change.

no one writes more moving, feel-good or heartbreak-hotel pieces than joe p. i wish i had half of his talent. but i don't know that i've ever read many 'tough-guy' pieces from joe. wish he'd put on that hat more often where it would count...

I had never heard of this Poz fellow until now, but that's a fine column.

In my book, it doesn't matter whether or not Chass's blog is irrelevent, or whether his health issues affect his writing.

If we've learned anything in this era of Google, it's this: Lies have to be stamped out, lest they persist unchallenged and become truth. If someone (anyone) writes (for whatever reason) that something happened, and doesn't bother to check the autobiography of one of those involved, Curt Flood, or to check with the person the column is about, Stan Musial, then he has to be called out on it.

In other words, Poz was not taking on Chass. He was taking on the lie. And that's always the right thing to do.

Murray Chass is a winner of the Spink Award. He's in the freakin Hall of Fame. (I know, not technically, but you know what I mean.)

I say this not to defend Chass, but to defend Pos. Chass' blog is not viewed the same as that of some nobody wiring out of his mother's basement. A very small percentage of folks in the business know that Chass is out of it now, but the vast majority of people know him as a HOF writer and give his words a due amount of respect.